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Article Assignment
The Sandspur ''begins with article assignment meetings, Monday nights at 6 p.m. in The Sandspur'' office. Article assignment meetings are run by the Managing Editor. Staff Writers, Staff Illustrators, Staff Photographers, Beat Reporters, Columnists, Section Editors, and Editorial Board members are required to attend this meeting. Before Article Assignment The article assignment meeting needs to be promoted by the Managing Editor and/or Public Relations Coordinator through a variety of channels to get people to attend the meeting. 'Rollins Calendar' At the beginning of each semester, the Managing Editor needs to submit The Sandspur article assignment meetings to the Rollins Calendar of Events. Once this is done, The Sandspur meeting will be included on the calendar as well as the “Today at Rollins” emails. To submit an event, go here. On the form, fill in the following information: *Event submitted by (your name, your Rollins email, and your phone #) *Event Information: **Event Name: The Sandspur Meeting **Event Categorization: All-College, Campus Life, College of Arts & Sciences, Hamilton Holt School, R-Net & Good Morning Rollins, Student Event **Event Description: Come to The Sandspur's weekly article assignment meeting. Sign up for articles to write or photos to take for your student newspaper. Ask about open positions, including designers, writers, section editors, and video staff. **Upload Image: Choose The Sandspur logo or a paper cover *Event Location: Rollins College Mills Memorial Hall *Event Schedule **Start Date/End Date: Select the first Monday of the semester for both **Recur Type: Weekly **Number of Occurrences: Count the number of weeks. **Start Time/End Time: 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. *Event Contact Information **Name: Your name **Phone #: 407-646-2696 **Email: your email or sandspur@rollins.edu *Other Information **Campus Department: The Sandspur **Event is open to the public: No **Event is open to: Everything except public **Link to more information: thesandspur.org Make sure to press “preview” and “submit” twice. You will get an email from Marketing once the event has been approved. 'Facebook Event' You must be an admin on The Sandspur’s Facebook page to create an event through it. The Managing Editor or Public Relations Coordinator should create an event for The Sandspur’s article assignment meeting once sometime between Thursday-Saturday for the following week. This is most important earlier and later in the semester. To create an event: *Go to www.facebook.com/thesandspur *Push the “Events” button below the cover photo. *In the top right, push “Create Event." *Fill out the “Create New Event” form with something similar to the following information. **Name: “SANDSPUR INTEREST MEETING” **Details: Come one, come all to The Sandspur's interest meeting! Bring article ideas for the upcoming issue of the paper and be ready to snatch up article and photography assignments! ::: This Monday, 6 p.m., 5th floor of Mills. Oh, and did we mention? FREE PIZZA! ::: ALSO, learn about all of the open staff positions and internships for this year! Discover all the ways YOU can get involved in your college newspaper. ::: We will be hiring: :::*Writers (staff, beat reporters, freelancers) :::*Photographers & Illustrators :::*Page Designers :::*Section Editors :::*Web Staff :::*Public Relations/Marketing Staff :::*Multimedia/Video Development Staff :::*Business Staff ::: We are also offering PR, Multimedia, and Business internships. ::: Please post below if you are interested and cannot make it to the meeting! *When: Select date & Time: 6 p.m. *Push “Create” *After the event has been created, select a Sandspur photo as the cover photo for the event. *On the right side of the event page, push the “Invite” button. Invite any current Rollins friends you have. The description of the event should be shorter rather than longer and preferably tailored to that meeting if possible (the first and last meeting of the semester’s descriptions should be different). For the first meeting of the semester, make sure to include instructions on how to get to The Sandspur office inside the Mills building since it is confusing for first years. Try to post a link to the event in any incoming class groups as well if possible. You can no longer invite everyone who likes a page to an event. You can only invite people you are friends with. Post the link in the Facebook Sandspurians and Sandspur Staff groups and ask other staff to invite their Rollins’ friends as well. 'Email Alert' Sunday night or Monday morning, the Managing Editor or Public Relations Coordinator should send out a campus-wide email to students (email studentsall@rollins.edu) from the sandspur@rollins.edu email account. A sample email is included below, in the email section of this handbook, and in the “Sample Emails” folder of the sandspur@rollins.eduemail account. 'Set Up Office' The Managing Editor should arrive in The Sandspur office at least half an hour before the article assignment meeting each week to set up the office. All chairs should be placed in a circle to provide a round-table atmosphere. 'Article Ideas' The Managing Editor should bring some article ideas to the article assignment meeting to start conversation in case attendees are hesitant to speak-up. A list of potential always-pertinent article ideas are listed in the Story Ideas section of this handbook. Section Editors, Staff Writers, and Beat Reporters should always bring article ideas to these meetings as well. 'Sign-in Sheet' The Managing Editor should print out a sign-in sheet and pass it around on one of the clipboards in the office to get everyone who attended the meeting’s name and email address so they can be emailed that night. A copy of this form can be found below as well as in the forms section of this handbook. 'Sign-up Sheet' The Managing Editor should also print out a sign-up sheet for his or her use during the meeting to record who signed up for what articles. Notes can be made here on the direction of the piece, if the writer requests additional help, and if a specific person in the office recommends a certain contact. A copy of this form can be found below as well as in the forms section of this handbook. During Article Assignment Everyone who attends will sit in chairs in a round-table type environment in The Sandspur office. The Managing Editor should sit near the front of the room. Introduce yourself and fellow'' Sandspur'' staff members, particularly leadership staff if there are a lot of people in the room. You can start the meeting by offering up an article idea and trying to start a conversation about that topic. Once someone has taken that idea, conversation may just start to flow into other ideas, or you can call on a Section Editor to offer up their ideas. Continue to call on Section Editors whenever the room gets quiet or offer up another idea. After about ten minutes in (or earlier once you have a group of regular writers), you can open the floor to everyone to offer up ideas. Record on the sign-up sheet the names of people who signed up for articles. Remember that you will have their email and proper spelling on the sign-in sheet, so you don’t need to worry about that here. Make sure by the end of the meeting someone has signed-up for World News and that Columnists have let you know what their article for the following week will be about. 'Tips' *Be clear at the beginning of the meeting that just because someone offers an idea does not mean they have to write it. *Try to not start meetings with a lot of new faces with “does anyone have any ideas?” because that tends to freak some first year students out. *Give everyone ample time to either agree to sign-up for an article or offer ideas. You are in the front of the room, so those chunks of silence will seem longer to you than to everyone else. Count to five slowly in your head before moving on to another idea or person to give people time to process and respond. *If no one is very responsive or if a lot of people have not signed-up for articles, you can have everyone go around the room and suggest an idea they want to write or think someone should write. Start with a Section Editor, Staff Writer, or a regular Freelance Writer. *Make sure to be welcoming to Photographers and Illustrators too. These people sometimes get lost during these meetings because the focus is on written content. *Emphasize the value of pictures, particularly for Rollins articles and restaurant or concert reviews to meeting attendees. *Avoid having your laptop open on your lap to type notes because that puts a barrier between you and the people you are talking to. As ideas seem to be drying up or as conversation seems to drift more towards random topics and less about article ideas, get the room’s attention and close the meeting: *Remind writers about the length of articles (400-700 words) and that articles are due by Friday at 5 p.m. Let them know you will be emailing them this information tonight. *Let everyone know that if they have any more ideas, want to sign-up for something, or are interested in other positions at The Sandspur, they can and should come talk to you, the Editor-in-Chief, or Production Manager after the meeting. *Let everyone know they are free to go if they want to. After Article Assignment Be prepared, to talk to anyone about current positions the paper is hiring for as well as more details regarding certain article ideas immediately after the meeting. 'Write Following Weeks Articles on Board' The Managing Editor should divide the white dry-erase board into six sections (News, Opinions, Features, A&E, Sports, Photos). List all articles that were signed-up for under the appropriate section with the name of the writer. This is for the Head Designer, Production Manager, and Editor-in-Chief to select next week’s cover art and for the Photo Editor to reach out to photographers for specific assignments. 'Email Writers who Signed-Up for Articles' The Managing Editor should email each writer who signed-up for an article using their email from the sign-in sheet. A sample email is included below. NAME, Thanks for coming to article assignment this week! We have you signed up for the following articles: - GAP Article - Career and Life Planning as part of Gen Ed Curriculum For the Career and Life Planning article, consider reaching out to Ray Rogers (rrogers@rollins.edu), the director of Career Services as well as Dr. Claire Strom (Cstrom@rollins.edu) who is in charge of the committee changing the general-education program. We ask that all articles be 400-700 words in length. All articles need to be submitted by Friday at 5 p.m. to submit@thesandspur.org. Please put your name in the attachment with your article. The Sandspur has a few resources to help you write your articles. - The Style Guide that Copy Editors will be using to edit your articles each week for grammar and style to fit The Sandspur’s expectations - Lauren Waymire (lwaymire@rollins.edu) is The Sandspur’s Writing Consultant. Feel free to show her drafts of your articles throughout the week or to meet with her to improve your writing. If you aren’t already, join our Sandspurians Facebook group to keep updated with The Sandspur. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at any time. Thank you, Annamarie Carlson Managing Editor, The Sandspur ::: 'Email Meeting Attendees Who Did Not Sign-Up for Articles' The Managing Editor should also compare the sign-in sheet to those who signed-up for articles. If anyone attended the meeting but did not sign-up for an article, send them an email with a list of the article ideas that are still available. Sometimes writers are too shy to speak up at meetings. A sample email is included below. NAME, It was great to see you at The Sandspur’s article assignment meeting tonight. I noticed you did not sign-up for an article, so I thought I would send you the list of articles that still need authors to see if anything sparks your interest. We would love to hear any of your ideas as well. - Sports: Athlete Profiles - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA Please let me know if you have any questions at any time. Thank you, Annamarie ::: 'Email Interested Sandspurians Who Did Not Attend' The Managing Editor should create a spreadsheet (either through Excel or Google Docs) of all of the people who have shown interest in The Sandspur that school year through filling out an application, signing-up at an involvement fair, or attending at least one Sandspur article assignment meeting. Any of those students who did not attend article assignment that night should be emailed with a list of the potential article ideas for that week and invited to contribute their own ideas. A sample email is included below. NAME, I (and The Sandspur) missed you at Sandspur Article Assignment this week! If you are interested in writing this week, here are a few articles that are looking for authors. We would love to hear your ideas as well! - Sports: Athlete Profiles - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA - SECTION: ARTICLE IDEA Just send me an email to claim an article! Always feel free to email me if you have any questions. You are receiving this email because you are on our interest list; if you would like to stop receiving these emails (and/or stop receiving our weekly campus wide updates) please let me know. Thank you, Annamarie 'Post Articles to Facebook' The Managing Editor should create a document of the articles discussed but without authors and articles signed-up for, broken down by section (the same as on the white board), on The Sandspurians Facebook Group. This allows people who did not attend the meeting a way to sign-up for articles. To create this document: *Go to The Sandspurians Facebook group *Push “Files” at the top of the page. *Push “Create Doc” *Title: Sandspur Articles for Issue # -- Due Fri. (Date) *Content: List articles that need authors first and then articles that are taken, broken down by section, afterwards.